Compacting press with selective ejection



g- 29, 1967 J. A. SMITH 3,337,916

COMPACTING PRESS WITH SELECTIVE EJECTION Filed Oct. 28, 1965 3Sheets-Sheet l up if W INVENTOR J05 A. SM/TH,

ATTORNEYS Aug. 29, 1967 J. A. SMITH 3,337,916

COMPACTING PRESS WITH SELECTIVE EJECTION Filed Oct. 28, 1965 5Sheets-Sheet 2 INVENTOR J05 A. 5M/TH,

BY ywm V8446, (ma/ 5 ATTORNEYS Aug. 29, 1967 J. A. SMITH 3,337,916

COMPACTING PRESS WITH SELECTIVE BJECTION INVENTOR Jo A. SM/TH,

United States Patent Filed Oct. 28, 1965, Ser. No. 505,488 .4 Claims.(Cl. 1816.7)

This invention relates to a compacting press with selective ejection.Basically the press of the present invention is substantially the sameas that fully disclosed in Belden Patent No. 3,172,156 granted Mar. 9,1965 The press disclosed in said patent is provided with a core punchand bottom stop arrangement disclosed and claimed in the IohannigmanPatent No. 3,168,759 granted Feb. 9, 1965.

By means of the press described in the said Belden patent, it waspossible to compact from powdered or comminuted material a part having astepped arrangement wherein the steps were of dilferent diameters and inejection of a compacted part from the said Belden press, the ejectionwas carried on sequentially to eject in order the portions of ditferentdiameters beginning with the largest so that the remaining portions ofthe workpiece were fully supported until they were ejected. This wasaccomplished in that after the top punch had completed its compactingstroke, during the course of which all platens in the press floateddownward by virtue of the friction between the material being compactedand the walls of the die cavity, means were provided to force theuppermost platen downwardly while the lower platens were held rigidly bytheir respective stop means. This action ejected the uppermost or largerdiameter of the workpiece from the uppermost die. Means were providedwhich were operated when the upper surface of the uppermost die wassubstantially flush with the upper surface of the next lower die torelease these stop means for the next lower :die so that the uppermostand next lower die would be forced downwardly together. This actionproceeded in the same manner with all lower dies until the workpiece wascompletely ejected so that during the ejection of each diameter of theworkpiece, that particular diameter was supported by the upper surfaceof the next lower die respectively.

With the foregoing basic considerations in mind, it is the principalobject of the present invention to provide a press in which the sequenceof ejection may be changed as desired, so that while in the patentedBelden press the top platen was moved downwardly first during ejectionand the intermediate platen next, mechanism has here been provided bymeans of which the intermediate platen may be moved downwardly forejection prior to the top platen, and so that in a press having anynumber of platens, the order of ejection may be changed as desired.

This and other objects of the invention which will be described ingreater detail herein-after are accomplished by that certainconstruction and arrangement of parts of which the following describesan exemplary embodiment.

Reference is made to the drawings forming a part hereof and in which:

FIG. 1 is basically a front elevational view of a press according to theinvention, the view being broken down the center to indicate that theparts seen on the righthand of the figure are in a difierent plane thanthose seen on the left-hand of the figure.

FIG. 2 is a fragmentary diagrammatic cross sectional view taken on theline 2-2 of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a fragmentary cross sectional view on an enlarged scale takenon the line 33 of FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is a fragmentary diagrammatic cross sectional view taken on theline 44 of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is a fragmentary elevational view on an enlarged scale as seenfrom the right of FIG. 4; and

FIGS. 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 are diagrammatic views of the sequence ofoperations in compacting and ejection in the making of a part having arecessed or undercut portion.

Briefly, in the practice of the invention, the ejection rods whichrelease the bottom stops for the various platens are all mounted on thetop platen and while the ejection rods for the next lower platen (theintermediate platen in a three platen press) extend only between the topand next lower platens, the ejection rods for platens below the secondplaten extend through apertures in said second platen and any otherplatens intermediate the top platen and the platen whose stops they areintended to release. Further, according to the invention, all of theejection rods are adjustable vertically so that in the full ejectionposition, the tops of all the lower punches are flush with the feedertable.

Referring now in more detail to the drawings, the press is generallyshown in FIG. 1. As there shown, it comprises -a frame 10 and an uppercasing 11 which houses the drive motor and eccentric mechanism for thepunch and the cam mechanism for the downward movement of the platensduring ejection. Since this mechanism is conventional, it will not bedescribed herein. In FIG. 1, the upper die platen is indicated at 13,the intermediate die platen at 14, and the lower die platen at 15. Whilea three platen press has been shown in the drawings, it will beunderstood that the principles disclosed herein apply to a press havingany desired number of platens. The reciprocating punch is only shown inFIG. 7 at 16 and it is actuated in an entirely conventional manner. Thefixed lower punch is indicated at 17 and if the article to be made is tobe hollow, a core punch may be provided at 18 (FIGS. 6 to 10 inclusive).The core punch 18 may be mounted axially within the fixed punch 17 andit may be hydraulically actuated by means of a piston and cylindersubjected to hydraulic pressure in known manner. The platens 14 and 15are fioatingly mounted on heavy guide rods (not shown) and may besupported b pneumatic and hydraulic pressure in known manner. Theuppermost die platen is floatingly supported on other rods, also notshown. These details are disclosed in greater detail in the said Beldenpatent to which reference is made. The platens 14 and 15 are providedwith stop means which are strong enough and rigid enough to withstandthe entire load of the press, and means are provided for releasing thesestop means at the desired time. These various means will not bedisclosed in detail since they are 'clearly disclosed in said Belden andJohannigman patents. The stop rods for the platen 14 are indicated at 23and the stop rods for the platen 15 are indicated at 24. The stop rods23 are actuated by the ejection rods 25. The ejection rods for the stoprods 24 are indicated at 26. It will be understood that when theejection rods 25 abut the stop rods 23, the stop rods 23 are released bythe mechanism disclosed in the above identified patents and thus theplaten 14 may be forced downward for ejection. Similarly, when theejection rods 26 abut the stop rods 24, the latter are released so thatthe platen 15 may be forced downwardly for ejection.

Whereas in the Belden patent the ejection rods 25 were substantiallyarranged as they are in the present invention, the ejection rods 26 weremounted on the intermediate platen '14 so that the platen 14 had to bereleased before the platen 15 could be released. According to thepresent invention, however, the ejection rods 26 are also mounted on thetop platen 13 and pass through holes in the platen 14.

The ejection rods 25 together are adjustable vertically to vary the gapindicated at A in FIG. 1 and the ejection rods 26 are togetheradjustable to vary the gap indicated 3 at B in FIG. 1. It will be clear,therefore, that if gap B is smaller than gap A, the platen will bereleased before the platen 14, which was not possible with a deviceaccording to the Belden patent. If the several ejection rods areadjusted, however, to make the gap A smaller than the gap B, then thepress will function in the same manner as that of the Belden patent andthe platen 14 will be released before the platen 15.

The adjustment of the ejection rods and 26 is dependent upon the fillsettings of the specific tooling. The ejection rods 25 are togetheradjustable vertically so that the punch mounted in the intermediateplaten is flush with the tooling in the top platen when gap A is closed.Similarly, ejection rods 26 are together adjustable vertically so thatthe punch mounted in the lower platen is flush with the tooling in thetop platen when gap B is 7 closed.

As can be seen in FIGS. 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 when the platens are movedto the fill position, if the outer ring 61 requires a greater length ofpowder than the intermediate ring 62, the intermediate platen punch mustmove upward less than the lower platen punch 62 with the result that gapB must be smaller than gap A causing the lower platen to be ejectedfirst. Thus, with correct fill settings of the platens, the sequence ofejection is always correct depending upon the configuration of the part.

The adjustment for the ejection rods is generally similar to thatdisclosed in the Belden patent. On the front of the machine there aremounted the cranks 30 and 31.

As best seen from a study of FIGS. 4 and 5, the crank 30 is mounted on ashaft 32 and at its other end is provided with a bevel pinion 34 meshingwith another bevel pinion 36 which has mounted fixedly therewith apinion 38. It will be observed that the parts numbered 33, 35,

.37, and 39 correspond to the parts numbered 32, 34, 36,:

38. The pinion 38 engages a large ring gear 40, whereas the pinion 39engages an identical ring gear 41 mounted .therebelow. The ring gear 40drives the pinions 42 while the ring gear 41 drives the pinions 43. Thepinions 42 are internally threaded so that rotation of these pinionsproduces vertical translation of the ejection rods which have anexternally threaded portion engaging therein, and in this mannerrotation of the crank 30 produces rotation of the pinions 42'and thus atranslation of the ejection rods 26, while rotation of the crank 31produces rotation of the pinions 43 and thereby a translation of theejection rods 25.

platen 15, and the stationary lower punch 63 is mounted on the bed ofthe machine. The chain line XX indicates the level of the stationarypunch 63 so as to make the operation more readily understood.

In vFIG. 6 the powder to be compacted has been inserted in the cavity asindicated at 64 and all the platens and dies are in the position forfilling. In FIG. 7 the reciprocating punch 16 has completed its downwardcompacting stroke and it will be-observed that the several platens withtheir associated dies have floated downwardly and the compacted articlenow exhibits its final configuration at 50.

The entire load of the press has been taken by the several stop rods asoutlined above. At the completion of the compacting stroke, the platensare forced further downwardly in order to achieve ejection of the part50. Since the workpiece St} has the undercut portion 51, it is desiredto eject only so much of the largest diameter as will carry theunderside of the undercut portion 51 out of the die platen 14 so thatthe part is ejected down to the bottom.

of the outside diameter at which point the top surface of the die 60 andthe punches 61, 62 are flush (FIG. 9). At this point then the stop rodfor the intermediate platen 14 is released and the die 60 and thepunches 61 and 62 move downwardly together to eject the hub 50b of theworkpiece 50. It will be seen that by this sequence of ejection wherethe bottom platen is released before the intermediate platen, all partsof the workpiece 50 are fully supported until they have been ejected. InFIG. 10, of course, the core punch 18'has been withdrawn down wardly sothat the workpiece 50 may be removed from the press.

From a study of the foregoing description, it will be clear that theprinciples of this invention may be applied to a pressure having anynumber of platens and that by adjustment of the fill settings of theseveral platens," the sequence of ejection may be changed as desired. Itwill also be clear that all the details which are not specifically shownor described in the present application may be as disclosed in the saidBelden and Johannigman patents.

It will be understood that modifications may be made without departingfrom/the spirit of the invention and no limitation is therefore intendedwhich is not specifically set forth in the claims which follow.

The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusi-ve property orprivilege is claimed are defined as follows 1. In a multi-platencompacting press for forming powdered material into an article havingportions of different diameter, said press comprising a frame, aplurality of die platens floatingly mounted in said frame and eachcarrying a die, said dies being in telescoping relationship, areciprocable punch and a fixed punch in axial alignment,

means for forcing said reciprocable punch downwardly diate die platensfor releasing the stop means for said next intermediate die platen,other spacing means between the upper and each other intermediate andthe lower die platens for releasing the stop means for the respectiveother intermediate and the lower die platens, said other spacing meanspassing through all such intermediate platens as intervene, said severalspacing means being separately adjustable, whereby said upper dieplaten, through a selective one of said spacing means, may first releasethe stop means for a selective platen, and thereafter, through otherselected ones of said spacing means, release the stop means for otherselective platens in a selective order.

2. A compacting press according to claim 1, wherein each of said spacingmeans and stop releasing means comprises two diametrically opposedspacer rods mounted on the upper platen, one pair for each intermediateand the lower platen, and two diametrically opposed stop rods for thepassage of said spacer rods for the stop rods for lower ones of saidintermediate platens and the lower platen.

3. In a three platen compacting press for forming powdered material intoan article having portions of three difplatens, each of said stop meansbeing capable of taking the full load of the press, release means forreleasing said several stop means, and means operative upon completionof the compacting stroke of said reciprocable punch to force the upperdie platen downwardly; first spacing means between the upper andintermediate die platens for releasing the stop means for saidintermediate die platen, second spacing means between the upper andlower die platens and passing through the intermediate platen forreleasing the stop means for the said lower platen, said first andsecond spacing means being separately adjustable, whereby said upper dieplaten, through said first spacing means, may first release the stopmeans for said intermediate platen, and thereafter, through said secondspacing means, release the stop means for said lower platen, or,alternatively, said upper die platen through said second spacing meansmay first release the stop means for said lower platen, and thereafter,through said first spacing means, release the stop means for saidintermediate platen.

4. A compacting press according to claim 3, wherein each of said firstand second spacing means comprises two diametrically opposed spacer rodsmounted on the upper platen, and a pair of diametrically opposed stoprods mounted on each of the intermediate and lower platens, the pair ofstop rods on the intermediate platen being axially aligned respectivelywith the spacer rods of said first spacing means, the pair of stop rodson the lower platen being axially aligned respectively with the spacerrods of said second spacing means, said intermediate platen havingapertures for the passage of the said spacer rods of said second spacingmeans.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,509,783 5/1950 Richardson18-16.7 3,154,812 11/1964 Haller 1816.7 3,168,759 2/1965 Johannigman18l6.7 3,172,156 3/1965 Belden l816.7

I. SPENCER OVERHOLSER, Primary Examiner. I. HOWARD FLINT, JR., Examiner.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE CERTIFICATE OF CORRECTION Patent No 3 ,337,916 August 29 1967 Joe A. Smith It is hereby certified that errorappears in the above numbered patent requiring correction and that thesaid Letters Patent should read as corrected below.

Column 1, line 48, beginnlng with "while in" strike out all to andincluding "platen" in line 53, same column 1, and insert instead whereasin the press of the above patents the top platen was moved downwardlyfirst during ejection and the intermediate platen next and then thelower platen, mechanism here has been provided by means of which the topplaten may be moved downwardly first during ejection and the lowerplaten next and then the intermediate platen column 4, line 5, for"intermediate" read bottom line 6, for "14" read l5 Signed and sealedthis 25th day of February 1969.

(SEAL) Attest:

Edward M. Fletcher, Jr. EDWARD J. BRENNER Attesting Officer Commissionerof Patents

1. A MULTI-PLATEN COMPACTING PRESS FOR FORMING POWDERED MATERIAL INTO ANARTICLE HAVING PORTIONS OF DIFFERENT DIAMETER, SAID PRESS COMPRISING AFRAME, A PLURALITY OF DIE PLATENS FLOATINGLY MOUNTED IN SAID FRAME ANDEACH CARRYING A DIE, SAID DIES BEING IN TELESCOPING RELATIONSHIP, ARECIPROCABLE PUNCH AND A FIXED PUNCH IN AXIAL ALIGNMENT, MEANS FORFORCING SAID RECIPROCABLE PUNCH DOWNWARDLY AGAINST POWDERED MATERIAL INSAID DIES TO COMPACT THE SAME AGAINST SAID FIXED PUNCH, SAID DIE PLATENSFLOATING DOWNWARDLY AS THE POWDERED MATERIAL IS COMPACTED THEREIN, STOPMEANS FOR AT LEAST THE INTERMEDIATE AND LOWER ONES OF SAID PLATENS, EACHOF SAID STOP MEANS BEING CAPABLE OF TAKING THE FULL LOAD OF THE PRESS,RELEASE MEANS FOR RELEASING SAID SEVERAL STOP MEANS, AND MEANS OPERATIVEUPON COMPLETION OF THE COMPACTING STROKE OF SAID RECIPROCABLE PUNCH TOFORCE THE UPPER DIE PLATEN DOWNWARDLY; FIRST SPACING MEANS BETWEEN THEUPPER AND NEXT INTERMEDIATE DIE PLATENS FOR RELEASING THE STOP MEANS FORSAID NEXT INTERMEDIATE DIE PLATEN, OTHER SPACING MEANS BETWEEN THE UPPERAND EACH OTHER INTERMEDIATE AND THE LOWER DIE PLATENS FOR RELEASING THESTOP MEANS FOR THE RESPECTIVE OTHER INTERMEDIATE AND THE LOWER DIEPLATENS, SAID OTHER SPACING MEANS PASSING THROUGH ALL SUCH INTERMEDIATEPLATENS AS INTERVENE, SAID SEVERAL SPACING MEANS BEING SEPARATELYADJUSTABLE, WHEREBY SAID UPPER DIE PLATEN, THROUGH A SELECTIVE ONE OFSAID SPACING MEANS, MAY FIRST RELEASE THE STOP MEANS FOR A SELECTIVEPLATEN, AND THEREAFTER, THROUGH OTHER SELECTED ONES OF SAID SPACINGMEANS, RELEASE THE STOP MEANS FOR OTHER SELECTIVE PLATENS IN A SELECTIVEORDER.